As I was reading Jeff's post, I noticed that the Journal of Fertilization: In Vitro-IVF-Worldwide, Reproductive Medicine, Genetics & Stem Cell Biology is published by Omics International, a publisher that has been flagged as being predatory (see http://scholarlyoa.com/2013/01/25/omics-predatory-meetings/) by Jeffrey Beall (see http://scholarlyoa.com/2016/01/05/bealls-list-of-predatory-publishers-2016/). Of course, that classification does not necessary mean that a paper published in one of their journals in necessarily of poor quality. A parsing of Beall's blog will reveal that more than a few legitimate researchers have apparently been duped into publishing in these types of journals. Moreover, Beall's work itself has been criticized (e.g., http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2013/12/16/parting-company-with-jeffrey-beall/). Anywho ....
Miguel _____________________________________ From: Jeffry Ricker, Ph.D. [[email protected]] Sent: Friday, January 08, 2016 12:02 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: [tips] Their wombs are alive with the sound of music The other day, I posted some excerpts from a newspaper article about Babypod—a device that plays music for developing fetuses through a speaker that the pregnant mother inserts into her vagina. The parents even can listen along with the fetus by putting on headphones attached to wires that hang out of the vagina. My post seemed to generate no obvious interest; but the claims seemed so outrageous to me that I have continued to investigate the scientific evidence for them. On the Babpod website, Dr. Marisa López-Teijón—apparently a reputable researcher in reproductive medicine at the Institut Marquésin Barcelona, Spain—claimed that ““Babies learn to speak in response to sound stimuli, especially melodic sound. Babypod is a device that stimulates before birth through music. With Babypod, babies learn to vocalize from the womb.” López-Teijón developed a prototype of this device, and it was implied that it was based on her research on fetal development. In fact, López-Teijón, García-Faura, & Prats-Galino (2015) published an article that looked at some possible effects of intravaginal musical stimulation of fetuses. But I realized that, before I can critically examine that article, I needed to look at other research that might help to explain why a reputable group of researchers became involved in a commercial enterprise that makes (what seem to me to be) very dubious claims about the effects of music on fetal development. I just finished reading another article by López-Teijón and her colleagues (López-Teijón, Castelló, Asensio, et al., 2015) on the effects of music on embryos produced through in-vitro fertilization. I’ll keep this short, which means my discussion probably will over-simplify their analyses, interpretations, and conclusions. But you can download the paper from here and read it yourself: http://www.omicsgroup.org/journals/improvement-of-fertilization-rates-of-in-vitro-cultured-human-embryos-by-exposure-to-sound-vibrations-2375-4508-1000160.php?aid=63299 López-Teijón, et al. (2015) referred to prior research that showed that “microvibrations” improved in vitro development of human embryos. Microvibrations, they stated, mimic peristaltic movements in the fallopian tubes, and such movements are thought to be important for “the dispersal of toxic metabolites generated by the oocyte, zygote or embryo and to the uptake of nutrients and molecules needed for further development.” In addition, they stated, “mechanical stimulation has been shown to activate DNA synthesis and gene transcription in endothelial and bone cells.” López-Teijón, et al. (2015) hypothesiszed that music would improve rates of in vitro fertilization and “embryo quality” (see article for details about the latter). They used three types of music: pop, heavy metal and classical. “The source of music was a commercially available MP3 player (iPod, Apple Inc., California, USA) placed inside each incubator and played constantly throughout embryo culture.” They found a staistically significant increase in fertilization rates 16-19 hours post-insemination in the music group (no differences between the three types of music, though). “The results of the descriptive analyses showed that fertilization rates were significantly higher (p<0.05) in the group exposed to music when compared with those not exposed to music (81.1% vs. 77.8% respectively). There was no overlap of the 95% confidence intervals between the group with music (80.7% - 83.3%) and the group without music (76.3% and 79.3%).” They found no improvement, however, in their measures of “embryo quality,” which were obtained about 44 hours after insemination. They concluded that “the routine use of music inside incubators during in vitro culture could be a useful tool to improve fertilization rates.” After looking at the methodological and analytical details in their article, I think this conclusion is more than a bit hasty. And replication by another group of researchers would be important, of course. In my next post, I want to look at the paper by García-Faura, & Prats-Galino (2015), in which they propose that intravaginal musical stimulation “could be used as a method for fostering fetal well-being” and that “it would be interesting to conduct further studies to explore this approach as a possible diagnostic method for prenatal hear-ing screening,” Best, Jeff References López-Teijón, M., Castelló, C., Asensio, M., Fernández, P., Farreras, A., Rovira, S., Capdevila, J. M., & Velilla, E. (2015). Improvement of fertilization rates of in vitro cultured human embryos by exposure to sound vibrations. Journal of Fertilization: In Vitro-IVF-Worldwide, Reproductive Medicine, Genetics & Stem Cell Biology, 2015. doi: 10.4172/2375-4508.1000160 López-Teijón, M., García-Faura, Á., & Prats-Galino, A. (2015). Fetal facial expression in response to intravaginal music emission. Ultrasound, doi:10.1177/1742271X15609367 http://ult.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/09/29/1742271X15609367.full.pdf -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jeffry Ricker, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Social/Behavioral Sciences Scottsdale Community College 9000 E. Chaparral Road Scottsdale, AZ 85256-2626 Office: SB-123 Fax: (480) 423-6298 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrJeffryRicker/timeline/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pub/jeffry-ricker/3b/511/438 --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=1632838.7e62b84813297f170a6fc240dab8c12d&n=T&l=tips&o=47797 or send a blank email to leave-47797-1632838.7e62b84813297f170a6fc240dab8c...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. 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